Daphne has always loved fairy tales. Even the olden fairy tales that vaulted from honor and triumph to the depths of despair. Then abandoned the reader wallowing in the midst of sorrow, discarded without a happy ending and bitterly swallowing a harsh judgment often times worse than death.
She was hiking in the wilderness on the outskirts of her town when the star fell. She had just the crested the hill that marked the halfway point of her usual path, when she first heard the heartbeat that quaked through the red clay. She darted toward the tree line, fearing a mudslide when the thunderclap seared her eyes. She stumbled bereft of sight in the midst of day, clinging to the pines. Her screams echoed in the hills as her eyes burned in their sockets, molten glass that leaked boiling tears.
The sun itself touched her eyelids scorching what little remained; fighting fire with fire its rays flared across her face. They sizzled and sparked, then extinguished the flames that licked inside her head. She came to overwrought and wrung. Her screams had torn at her throat like a ravenous wolf and her hands throbbed; blood and pine sap caked in her palms.
Staggering to her feet, she beholds him. His arms outstretched, his body twisting and spinning like a kaleidoscope of ultraviolet light. Wings, blazing brighter than any sun or star should have the right to, are spread behind him, a breath-taking plumage of thunderbolts and supernovas. The after-image of his wings dark as the wings are bright, feathery ink-spills and black holes dance before her eyes.
His face is frozen in an agonized scream. He balances on a precipice, the very air rent around his form. She can hear his tortured heartbeat quaking through her soles.
Enthralled, she lunges forward, and grasps his forearms. With a mighty pull, she yanks him to her and holds him fast grounding him to this realm. His scream ceases and his fingers wrap around her arms. His first breath is a mighty sea breeze that whips her hair out like sails. Then he settles, no longer an unworldly kaleidoscope, but a proper man.
When he touches her, she hears the music of the spheres. Creation's crescendo soars through her skin.
All is well, Emmanuel.